Whenever they have a spike in demand, the de-regulated prices go up by several hundred percent. Example
If they don’t have fixed rate, they’re in a pickle.
Source: sadly live in Texas
Yeah, they’ll happily send you a bill without fixed rates as soon as they can
Just like to point out that Jerry Jones (the owner of the Dallas Cowboys) made almost $1 Billion, with a B, during the big freeze because he owns the natural gas fields and his good budy Governor Abbot said that wholesalers must sell for the max amount as allowed by law during that time, basically legalizing price gouging.
They pay their savings directly into the pockets of bought politicians and corrupt energy execs.
I thank my lucky stars to be in San Antonio where we have municipal power.
People complain about CPS (city public service) but we get a say in how the company is run and our bills are quite reasonable compared to the state average.
Most of us don’t pay the market price hour to hour. Our electricity provider absorbs the risk of price spikes and raises our rates if the math stops working for them.
Griddy was a provider that sells at the market rate, which is usually below the general price you would pay, but you take the risk of price spikes during peak demand.
Thank you! So much misinformation floating around, its ridiculous.
I’ve done lots of tech projects within the retail energy industry in Texas - this is the right answer.
To expand a little bit:
Retail energy providers (REPs), like NRG, ClearSky, Just Energy, etc. make their money by forecasting the amount of energy that will be needed as far in advance as possible and purchasing that amount from power generators like CenterPoint and marking it up a few cents. The farther out, the cheaper they can get it. I’ve helped build forecasting engines for a few that ingest historical usage data from meters (all meters in Texas are smart meters), weather data, and others to use machine learning to forecast how much individuals will need and aggregate it together to help the energy traders make better informed trade decisions farther out.
If they mess up or an unforeseen event happens and they don’t have enough energy bought for that time segment (forgot the term for a window of time they use), they have to go to the spot market which is where the prices fluctuate and can be many many multitudes higher than the rate the customers are contracted to pay.
In a storm scenario or a freeze, it can be thousands of times more expensive because demand is so high and supply is so limited. This is when REPs go bankrupt if they don’t have the cash on hand.
There are also insurance plans that the REPs pay for that cover very specific conditions for different types of events or outages that can kick in to cover the huge costs they would otherwise incur on their own buying electricity at that spot rate. I’ve known a few that were only able to stay operating because someone a few years prior had bought an insurance policy that covered said weather event.
Griddy died because of the ice storm in Texas a few years ago and the huge costs people incurred. I actually met with their CIO the year prior as part of a technology assessment of their stack. Nice guy.
Edit: also you can largely thank Enron and Rick Perry for deregulating Texas’ energy - which directly led to the terrible “performance” of the Texas grid during the winter storm Uri in 2021. Same for Enron in the constant blackouts in California in the early 2000’s.
Griddy
More questions here than answers, unfortunately.
It’s my understanding that there is a cap at $5000/MwH ($5/kwH). That is still hella expensive, but would only be for a day or two at maximum?
For the headlines of +$16000 power bills, that is probably a one-off for heavy power consumers, like businesses that have massive freezers and such, correct?
there is a cap at $5000/MwH
It’s MWh (megawatt hours). That’s only for wholesale electricity, which is available to retail electrical providers, not consumers. So your utility company can charge you whatever they want, but their price is capped. Funny how that works.
More info about the cap specifically available here. (PDF)
Ok, that clears up my misunderstanding then. I was thinking that the cap applied across the board. (That does change things a bit, don’t it?)
I have a friend from high school that got hit with a something like $20,000 bill because he signed up for some discount program on his electric bill. The freeze a couple years ago did similar things to demand and he got hit with a massive bill.
I presume he couldn’t pay it? What happens after that? Do you get blacklisted from power companies?
You get tossed to collections and your credit is ruined. It makes it very hard to rent, finance anything or get certain jobs.
A properly insulated industrial freezer should consume less electricity than a house with AC, even if it’s set at a reasonable temp.
TIL. It makes sense that they can be more efficient now that you pointed that out.
I’m curious as to how this would compare to a properly insulated home?
most the houses in texas are uninsulated to keep construction costs down. (despite the fact that even a minimal amount of insulation would pay for itself inside of a year or two.) (Why would you want to insulate against heat, right? global warming is a woke-ist hoax! /s)
New houses or ones built in the 1960’s? If its new houses, how does code not specify a minimum R value? Its not just about keeping heat in in the winter, its needed to keep the heat out in the summer.
texas doesn’t require a specific r-value for walls in the southern third of the state. (the rest it’s r-5). They do require some insulation in an attic.
Most (cheap) homes don’t slap up insulation if they don’t have to. and r-5 is an extremely low value.
and further, that’s only on new houses. There’s plenty of old houses still in circulation and the vast majority of the old houses are entirely uninsulated. a properly insulated house, you can keep rooms warm just by being in them. we saw that’s not true of homes in texas during the big freeze a while back.
Its not just about keeping heat in in the winter, its needed to keep the heat out in the summer.
that’s this sarcastic comment was about:
(Why would you want to insulate against heat, right? global warming is a woke-ist hoax! /s)
When I was growing up the people across the street had an uninsulated houses – in NW Wisconsin.
I guess Texas is going to do Texas things but with the heat and the grid falling apart every couple of years, they really should mandate the same level of insulation that we do up north.
Yeah… I’m in MN.
It’s not like we don’t get triple digits ourselves in recent years. And it really does come down to shaving down those construction costs. The insulation would pay for itself in like 2 years, though.
they really should mandate
That sound you hear is Texas loudly pushing back on any sort of gubmint infetterance.
Did you mean interfetterance?
Not correct.
I have coworkers in Texas that got hit with multi thousand dollar bills during brown outs.
Deregulating critical services never ends well for the consumer.
Maybe it depends on your energy provider and whether you have a fixed rate or variable rate plan? I don’t know if other places have those options or not. Check out powertochoes.org if you don’t know what I mean. Mine just went up from $200 to $300 this month with the heat. My highest of usually 1-2 months of ~$350.
$350? 😭 ive never had an electric bill above $150
In the apartment I just moved out of, even after several complaints I had summer electric bills $600+ and it was still hot…night before I moved it was 91 outside and 89 inside. So far my new apartment is better but haven’t seen any electric bills yet
They just make a lot of money or lived outside their means. When people mention big AC bills, they’re cooling 2000sqft homes to under 70F 24/7. No idea why American culture does this insanity.
I get by just fine with 78F during the day and a little lower at night, it even gets a bit cold when the compressor runs. Low low bills even when it’s 110 (not hyperbole, that’s the literal temp) outside.
Additionally every degree higher it gets outside, the less efficient your AC/heat pump gets so you need more power to hit the same temp even after accounting for the higher heat differential.
My average bill is $350, with summer months reaching ~$650. But, I have 3100 sq feet with 7 people at home and 2 EVs. Including monthly service fees, my per kWh cost works out to 11.9 cents.
Who’s your provider? My plan is about to expire. I’m looking at Octopus for 13.4 cents.
SRP, but they only operate in Phoenix, AZ.
I had 300 dollar bills peak season in one bed apt before due to poor insulation. Being poor sucks. I thought it was a good deal until the bills came in lol
2400 sq ft. Just two of us now, but I’m home in the day during the summer and we have frequent guests. In past years we had elderly mom and nursing care here so we had to keep it comfortable all day. We heat/cool upstairs only at night, downstairs only in the day and close vents in unused rooms. Our mid-90’s HVAC can’t get to 70°. We did get an electric pellet grill last year and we’ve been using it a lot to keep from heating the house. I wonder how much that adds.
We did get an electric pellet grill last year and we’ve been using it a lot to keep from heating the house. I wonder how much that adds.
A rule of thumb I heard from datacenters is to count every watt of power consumption as 3 to account for the additional demand on the cooling systems and battery backup, so an electric grill probably saves a ton of energy over the oven given it isn’t heating up the house
In Texas? It’s 600 degrees here today. Friend refers to it as Satan’s asshole.
What part of Texas are you in? Here in the Austin area, it was like 85°F. It was super nice. Looks like it’s gonna be nice tomorrow as well.
Dallas. We’re 97-101 the next few days, then it drops to 90 with a chance of rain Thursday and Friday. Glad I’m not in Houston sweating without electricity!
His name is Dan Patrick.
Took me a day to realize that abbot was Satan and Patrick was his asshole.
Arizona here. My August service bill is the highest of the year, usually ends up around $425 or so with the thermostat set to ~76. January is usually the lowest, and I can get that down to about $75. Averages out to about $220/mo over the year. It’s ridiculous.
Most residents aren’t on these types of plans. The ones that are turn shit off, or pay through the nose.
Generally the ones that are on those plans are the most vulnerable. I’ve got a fixed TXU plan. The up front cost of being on it was a couple of hundred bucks because I had bad credit at the time. The pay as you go variable rate places don’t have that up front cost and when it’s not peak times they’re significantly cheaper.
Unfortunately they don’t always let people know in time when the rates spike. So these vulnerable people don’t even realize they should be turning shit off or they’re not home to do it or it’s a heat wave/ice storm where they could just fucking die if they turn off climate control.
It’s been a fucking mess down here in Houston. My electricity came up pretty quickly and I was able to head west and grab a hotel for a night so I didn’t get heat stroke. I’m lucky. I was able to come back and eat the brisket I smoked before Beryl came through (I’m a stereotype, sue me). But there are people who still don’t have electricity in this fucking weather and there are others who have to decide between their fridge and their AC.
I’m drunk, bitter, and pissed off tonight. So I’m gonna ramble.
Drunk, bitter, and pissed off. That should be our state motto. Cheers!
Toss these guys a few bucks the next time your plan is up for renewal and see what rate you can get. Usually TXU is on the high side. https://www.texaspowerguide.com/
It is, but it wasn’t when I got on the plan. I happened to hit it at just the right time. I’ve been too lazy to shop around since then.
I’m gonna take that advice. I’m up again in either November or December I think. I need to go look.
They don’t
The article and comments here make me very happy to live in Quebec where the electricity is 0,067CAD per kWh for the first 40, then after it is 0,103CAD per kWh, and most of the time, that electricity is 100% renewable. In Québec we have many problems but the electricity is one big point to be proud of as a nation
$0.058 / kWh here in rural Oregon, it’s pretty awesome.
Now do the exchange rate.
How much is your income taxed? ~60%, like the rest of Canada?
If you want to talk about taxes, include cost of your healthcare. Because that’s included in our taxes.
Fun fact, America pays as much per capita for healthcare through taxes as Canadians, but that only gets you Medicare and Medicaid. Americans sure get angry about a lot of things, but I never see them get angry about that.
According to ChatGPT:
15% on the first $49,275 of taxable income.
20% on the next $49,275 of taxable income (over $49,275 up to $98,550).
24% on the next $19,170 of taxable income (over $98,550 up to $117,720).
25.75% on the taxable income over $117,720.
The last bracket which starts at 235k is about 58% (but there are many ways to put money aside to lower your income bracket). But don’t lose our hair worrying if we will have to file for bankruptcy to get basic healthcare. We also get many tax-free and tax. In Montreal we have a top 10 world university that costs less than 1000$ per semester for citizens. We also don’t have to worry about people carrying guns around. But go on I guess
Holy propaganda-muncher 😂
Bullshit.
God you kaybeckers are retarded
Thanks for getting to our level on your own 😘
A big part of that is it’s all state owned. Having private companies in charge of something as vital and important as energy infrastructure is just pure folly imo.
Yeah 100%. the current government here has a tendency to do bad stuff and a big fear here is they will slowly make it more private owned. But I think that every essential service should be state owned. electricity, groceries, clothing, internet etc. We have too few companies here that share too much of the market
But I think that every essential service should be state owned. electricity, groceries, clothing, internet etc.
I’m right there with you. To think our food security hinges on a bunch of fat cats and the stock market makes me nauseous. If I start talking about the telecom industry, I might just throw my phone. Change is long overdue.
Telecom industry is so corrupt here it’s unbelievable they get away with it
That’s some next level owning the libs.
I’m certainly feeling owned right now. Ouch!
Donebrach deleted their comment :(
By living in an area that has a regulated utility provider. One of the primary requirements I have when choosing a place to live is to make sure the utility provider in the area is a regulated entity.
I find it highly unlikely that a human being is deciding their living situation based on whether or not their utility provider is regulated.
Well I did, so shrug I guess I’m an outlier. My home search was very limited to one county so I could make sure we were covered by that city’s resources. Besides, I didn’t say it had to be the only reason. Just answering OPs question on how people live with those private unregulated utilities, which I did by avoiding them altogether.
That’s the neat thing! They don’t.
What’s so neat about it?
sarcasm
Get a hotel room like any adult man does when he is hot and bothered…
🤣
